TORONTO – Pedro and Buddy – two gay penguins – were tossed out of the Toronto Zoo, let loose onto the streets.

TORONTO – Pedro and Buddy – two gay penguins – were tossed out of the Toronto Zoo, let loose on the streets.

Zoologists at the Toronto Zoo first tried to separate the “gay” penguin couple at the Toronto Zoo but that caused a commotion both among zoologists and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

But in the middle of the night, several anti-gay-penguin fanatics (AGPeFs) snuck into the penguin exhibit – snagged Pedro and Buddy and threw them – separately – onto the street.

Luckily, Pedro and Buddy found each other behind an Italian restaurant and now… they are looking for a new home, a place that doesn’t discriminate against gays.

Buddy and Pedro have not only been inseparable, but started mating several years ago. Bred in captivity, 10-year-old Pedro and Buddy, 20, came to Toronto from zoos in the U.S. as part of a popular African penguin exhibit which opened at the zoo in May, and formed a connection as members of a “bachelor flock“.

“It’s a complicated issue, but they seem to be in a loving and committed relationship,” said Sal Torizinni, chair of the Toronto zoo board.

Zoo officials, who watched the two penguins mate, immediately tried to separate the birds from each other and pair them with females for breeding, as African penguins are an endangered species.

But Pedro and Buddy don’t like girls.

Same-sex companionship among penguins is actually quite common. In 2009, Z and Vielpunkt, two male Humboldt penguins at Germany’s Bremerhaven Zoo, became proud parents of a healthy penguin chick hatched from an egg fertilized by another penguin couple. Another such pair at China’s Polarland Zoo was even given a wedding celebration.

And, as LiveScience reports, homosexuality has been documented in more than 450 species of vertebrates, “signaling that sexual preference is biologically determined in animals.”

Watch a video about Pedro and Buddy. This was taken right before they were tossed out on the streets: